give me hope in the darkness (bury my heart next to yours)
by gustin puckerman
Summary: Four times Caitlin can't stand having another man in her bedroom, and one time she actually could. —Barry/Caitlin. Post 1x12 "Crazy for You". Heavy mentions of Ronnie/Caitlin. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: Guess who's in a Snowbarry mood again? Yup. This gal. Also, if you're planning to leave some dirty-ass comments dissing this ship, just don't okay? Don't pick up fights. Especially not around my work. If you don't like this ship, just safely go away and surround yourself with things that make you happy. I don't need your negativity anywhere near me. This has been a public service announcement.**

* * *

 **(five.)**

It's like she's seven again.

It's like she's seven again and she's just gone through a very horrible day at school and she can't stop crying about it. She can't. Her chest hurts, her eyes feel weird whenever she tries opening them and actually _see_ , and she hates how her body can't seem to stop shaking. But she's not seven. Nor did she just experienced 'a bad day' at school. She hates those facts even more.

(The empty casket they've just buried still hangs heavily in her mind. Like a messy threat, yet painful all the same.)

Her father opens the door with a kind of gentleness and firmness her mother couldn't possess, and Caitlin's crying so hard that she can't control it in herself to ask her father to leave her alone. If only for these few hours. If only for that day. So all she could do is turn her body against the man, hoping he would get the hint.

He does, she'd like to think—it's just that he chooses to ignore it.

(In any normal circumstances, she'd snort, insists that her father is being extremely stubborn.)

Her father doesn't say a word, not even one bit when he's stepped closer and sits besides her. She tries not to cry—tries her very best to be that strong girl her family's so proud of—tries her best not to make that stupid choking noises at the back of her throat. Her father sighs, a sad one, and puts a hand on her shoulder. A gesture simple enough that makes all of her will melt like metal meeting fire, resulting into her smearing her father's white shirt with her tears.

"Oh, _Daddy_..."

Her father sighs some more—always the quiet guy—pats her and holds her tighter. Caitlin eventually _does_ ask her father to leave, but only because she can't shake the feeling that her father shouldn't be here. In this room where Ronnie and her once shared. She could almost hear Ronnie's voice, in a cringe as he'd tell her how weird it is that her dad's in _their_ bedroom.

She doesn't actually cry after that. Not that hard anyway.

The room is very empty.

 **(four.)**

Two months after that, Cisco shows up with reports and files, and they talk (argue) about The Bermuda Triangle over Thai food. It's nice. Cisco has been a very nice company—and not just because he's patient with her; always so kind, so ready to come to her assist whenever she needs it. And it has been a wonderful meeting.

Up until he excuses himself to use the bathroom and Caitlin finds him roaming inside of their— _her_ —bedroom instead. "You shouldn't be here."

"Oh, sorry." Says Cisco, missing the very deep frown she has on her face. "I just needed to use the bathroom real bad and—"

"Cisco," she says in a mock laughter. "You can't be here. That's my and Ronnie's—" and then she catches herself, and her stomach flips in a way that it does very disgustingly. Caitlin hates that. She always feel like she's about to puke. She dislike puking very much.

"Caitlin..."

"I'm sorry," she tells him, backing away. Cisco removes himself from the room but Caitlin realises that she's still shaking. "You can't be in there."

"Okay. Okay. I know it now. Hey, are you okay? Caitlin, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"

"Maybe you should just go."

And that was that.

 **(three.)**

She tries moving on. Six months later she meets up a man—a very nice man with a very nice smile whose name she can't ever remember—and tries to bring him home. She moans and groans in all of the right places when he wets his mouth over her skin even though secretly all she ever feel like is crying. But she doesn't—not even a single tear—and she claws onto his shirt because she wants to be stronger tonight. She wants to _move on_.

It doesn't work out.

The very nice man—Dave or Danny or something—lays her down on her bed and she looks up and she sees Ronnie and something in her chest breaks. The moment the guy leave trail of kisses down where he's slipped off her bra straps she holds his arm, and tells him, "No."

He tries kissing her a little bit, breathless, asking her if she's sure.

She looks again and sees Ronnie and feels all sorts of sin washing over her body even though he's _dead_ and this is supposed to be okay. She puts a hand to cover her make-up ruined face and tells Dan or David or something that she's sure. Damien or Darren or Dickson kisses her one last time by the edge of her lips and says, "Okay," and leaves her like that—like she's broken, and he knows he can't fix her.

She always half wonders what would've happen if he tries.

Maybe then she can actually remembers his name.

 **(two.)**

The bathroom in her—used to be _their_ — room has a problem and Caitlin knows she can't survive if she can't have hot water. The maintenance guy is an old Hispanic man who speaks very fluent English, and she doesn't look at her funny and does his job very efficiently.

Her stomach feels hollow when she's making her morning tea and realises that there is another man in her—used to be _their_ —room and even though that man is just there to fix the damn heater, Caitlin can't help but to feel like she's betrayed a big part of herself because if Ronnie were here, he'd know what to do. He'd know what went wrong and he'd know how to fix it.

But Ronnie wasn't, and Caitlin feels sick because as she stares into her morning tea, the tea she always prepare before going to work, she realises that she's already accustomed to a life _without_ him and it hurts her.

There isn't supposed to be a life without him.

The Hispanic man—he tells Caitlin he likes to be called 'Ed'—finds him stunned and immobile in her kitchenette when he's does. He tries snapping her out of her trance, but when that fails, Ed takes her morning tea and dumps it in her sink—he tells her it has gotten cold, Miss Caitlin—and then sits her down on her couch. He explains to her that he can pay him when his company send the bills, wish her luck and lead himself out of the house.

Caitlin doesn't cry this time, but she realises that her house is very, very empty.

 **(and one.)**

"Hey Barry? Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?" It doesn't dawn on her—not exactly—what she's just asked until he says his answer and sits down. She looks at him, tries to read him through her fuzzy mind, and thinks back about the night they've been through.

His thumb moving in a soothingly constant pattern on her thigh makes what's left of her heart feels warm, and she feels... _content_ just lying there, staring at him. And she thinks about the night some more. About when they've sung, about the jacket that's draped over her shoulder, about his hand on her back when she's vomited, going in lazy circles as he attempts to calm her down. And Barry's good. _So_ good.

She really likes him, she thinks.

And then she realises that _he's in her room_ but that... That's okay. She doesn't mind it. And she feels good. _He_ makes her feel good. She thinks absently that she could get used to this.

"Sweet dreams, Caitlin," he says softly when her eyelids droop to a close, her mind slipping between reality and dreams, the presence of his hand on her gone from her mind when she's no longer even registering if he's really there or if he's just a figment of her drunken imagination.

And suddenly, with the presence of Barry's warmth still hovering at the back of her mind, Caitlin ponders on the fact that she doesn't feel that empty after all.


End file.
